Department Spotlight

Faculty-Student Team Develops Intelligent Software Agents

Tens of thousands of hospital patients die every year as a result
of medical mistakes, according to a recent study by the Institute
of Medicine. It's no wonder given the torrent of medical information
that doctors have to wade through in order to make sometimes split-second
diagnostic and treatment decisions.

To aid doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, Associate
Professor of Computer Science Susan Mabry and her students are developing
intelligent software agents -- or "softbots" -- to monitor
patient history, vital signs, lab results or other data and then
provide diagnostics and recommended courses of action. While the
softbots are programmed to independently gather and evaluate data,
the goal is to support, rather than replace, doctors.

"We don't see treatment as being automated," says Mabry,
who managed a computer research group at Northrop-Grumman Corp.
before joining Whitworth's faculty in 1999. "Rather, we see
these agents as an advisory resource in complex healthcare environments
where the volume of data can be overwhelming."

Mabry's team -- which she describes as being part of one of the
best undergraduate computer science research programs in the country,
with all of her students going on to graduate school -- is developing
a prototype under a National Science Foundation grant and is now
seeking National Institutes of Health funding to develop a model
for clinical trials.